Tag Archives: Destiny

Yesterday during Bungie’s Rise of Iron livestream which revealed Destiny’s newest expansion, Rise of Iron will cost £24.99 and will be available on September 20.

If you pre-order the expansion, you will be able to get your hands on a revamped version of the Gjallarhorn, titled Iron Gjallarhorn. For those who didn’t pre-order the Rise of Iron will still be able to obtain a Gjallarhorn through an in-game quest.

Following the initial leak that cropped up a few weeks ago that revealed the Rise of Iron expansion by artwork, the reveal trailer and livestream have given players a more in-depth look into what’s to come in September.

Rise of Iron will only be launching for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, leaving behind last generation consoles.

The new expansion will be set in The Plaguelands that’s a new playable area beyond the Earth’s Cosmodrome wall as indicated in the reveal trailer. The expansion will include a new raid, strike, story missions and a new patrol area, which is pretty much the same format as The Taken King expansion.

Spearheading the expansion is Iron Banner’s very own Lord Saladin who will act as your companion like Eric Morn through The Dark Below and Petra Venj in House of Wolves. Guardian’s are tasked this time around to focus on going up against mutant Fallen and to find out exactly what happened to the rest of the Iron Lords.

Splicers have broken through The Wall and have come across, “forbidden technology of almost limitless power,” called SIVA, and they are able to transform, “the region to fit their twisted desires.”

Information on the expansions raid and strike is still at this point in time kept under wraps however more information will be released between now and September commented Bungie.

The official description reads, “Guardians must rise to the challenge to take their place as the next generation of Iron Lords. Along the way they will join forces with a legend from humanity’s Golden Age to defeat a plague of unstoppable evil once and for all.”

In an interview with VG247, speaking with David ‘Deej’ Dague and Eric ‘Urk’ Osborne go into more details on a bit more about the lore behind the Iron Lords and much more.

“We’re in a really good spot with Destiny right now and the outcry we’ve heard from the community recently is that they want more content. We’ve been creating a lot of fun experiences in our Live Team and we’ve seen a lot of success there. People are playing the game and finding lots of fun things to do. We’ve been fine-tuning those and making them better and better as we go.”

“But we’ve been hearing this loud chorus of people who wanna learn more about the lore, and the story, and have a rich cinematic campaign experience, meet the characters of the world. To have some new gear, some armour to go out there and chase and earn and upgrade. Co-operatively and competitively – obviously people are really interested in having a new raid experience.”

“Rise of Iron is primarily about telling a great story and providing players with tons of things to do in the world. It’s literally an expansion to the story and the world of Destiny.”

“Certainly we’re gonna have a ton of quality of life improvements and they’re some things we’re playing pretty close to the chest that we’re gonna talk about further down the line, but fundamentally it really is ‘here’s a bunch of new stuff to play and do in Destiny’ for the people that love it.”

“Our entire approach to developing Destiny has changed because we have the luxury of understanding our audience now,” Dague commented.

“Now that we know who the Guardians are, and now that we understand what motivates our audience to play this game and what things our community really loves about this game, we can – with expansions like this especially – latch onto those things and elaborate on them.”

“When we look at the competitive and social phenomenon that Iron Banner has been since the Destiny beta, we’ve have a number of different requests from people who want us to satisfy curiosity about Lord Saladin’s story. Who is Felwinter? Why do I have a heavy machine gun named after Jolder? Who are these people, and why are they worthy of having their names etched onto these fantastic weapons?”

“With something like Rise of Iron, we can tell that story, and pull them a little deeper into unexplored corners.”

Destiny‘s next expansion as reported by Kotaku (via Reddit), is called Rise of Iron. As seen in the modified artwork obtained by Kotaku below, the illustration shows Lord Saladin gloriously surrounded by a pack of wolves in what looks like Earth’s Cosmodrome, or more specifically according to various forums as the image shows a breach in a metal wall, this could be highlighting a call back to the Battle of Twilight Gap.

Looking over Destiny lore, the Battle of Twilight Gap which was the third major battle that took place on the outskirts of a city, involved the Kell of the Fallen House of King who plotted an attack and capture of the Traveler. The lore goes on to talk about Ana Bray, a hunter descendant from the famous Clovis Bray who led a fire team that most likely reported the incoming invasion of Kell. Lord Saladin Forge who led a team of Guardians with his protoges Zavala and Shaxx to defend a fort, however were eventually overrun. Shaxx however with a squadron of Guardians going against his former mentor Lord Saladin disobeyed orders and drove the Fallen out back to where they came from.

Assuming from the title of the expansion, many people believe that it could possibly focus on the Iron Lords themselves who have had weapon artefacts named after them in the game itself.

“First and foremost we have Lord Saladin. He’s the representative of the Iron Banner. He’s a hero to the City and a legend in his own right […] Who are the Iron Lords? You know them by the names of Iron Banner weapons we use. Jolder, Skorri, Felwinter, Timur etc. In the Grimoire they’re described as ancient warriors who were there to defend the City when it was founded.”

The new expansion is going to feature a new raid and is expected to have the same amount of content like last year’s The Taken King. According to Kotaku, the Rise of Iron‘s raid will supposedly be based on the raid which was meant to feature in the previous years supposed unfinished House of Wolves DLC, as they could not get it finished in time of the release. This has been a long wait considering The Taken King was released September 2015, so that’s a full year of repetitive grinding.

Destiny: Rise of Iron expansion has however been confirmed for a release later this year around fall time, presumably September. No doubt there will be more information regarding the new expansion June this year at E3.

Since the release of Destiny’s successful expansion, The Taken King, Bungie have yet to deliver any new content such as a new raid, or perhaps varied additional strikes. Ever changing content which players know and love about the universe since the release of vanilla Destiny back in September 2014. As players have been receiving DLC content from The Dark Below to House of Wolves to fill in the time gaps, die hard Destiny players are not falling for the although alluring, yet grindy nature of what Destiny is pretty much all about.

To give credit where it’s due, Bungie have tried to play around with time-gated events such as the ‘Sleeper Stimulant’ and the ‘Black Spindle’ event or events which come available on a specific day and/or set of days like Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris. Even though time-gated events weren’t very casual or person who works full time friendly.

Bungie have also released limited time events such as the October’s ‘Festival of the Lost’ to celebrate Halloween by decorating the tower, allowing players to wear neat paper crafted masks like a Xur or Atheon helment and allocating Eva Lavante as the events vendor for specific quests and items. This event wasn’t of course devoid of micro-transations where you were able to purchase special Halloween themed ‘Thriller’ dances from Tess in the tower as well as legendary helmets to keep after the event timed out.

December’s ‘Sparrow Racing League'(SRL) included two weeks where players who had The Taken King expansion were able to participate. You were able to race on two racetracks one being Campus Martius, where players received rewards like legendary helmets and class items which had racing perks.

And finally February’s ‘Crimson Days’ for Valentine’s Day which started on February 9th extending to February 16th. The event was not as large of scale like Festival of the Lost, however the experience which awarded Glimmer Chews, comedic masks and Valentine’s Day themed 320 Light Ghosts was more welcoming than having nothing. The event itself linked to a PvP mode titled Crimson Doubles.

Aside from all these welcoming events, Destiny 2 unfortunately won’t be out anytime this year, as Activision and Bungie both confirmed, but will be released at some point in 2017.

In light of such facts however, Bungie have in a weekly blog post wrote that there will be a full game expansion later this year.

“Prior to the holiday break we mentioned a second, larger update slated for Spring. The content release will feature a significant Light increase, a bunch of new gear to earn and equip, and new challenges for PvE players seeking some more fun experiences and replayability.

Beyond that, the team is focused on delivering a large expansion later this year, and a full Destiny sequel in 2017.”

According to a report by Jason Schreler at Kotaku, Bungie is supposedly receiving an early helping hand by an Activision subsidiary, High Moon Studios, to make ‘Destiny 2.’ According to the Kotaku report, Bungie had cut out a massive chunk of new space which was to be found on Mars and instead gave it to High Moon Studios to work on for the game.

Even though there had been information from a contract leaked back in 2012 which had revealed Bungie’s “ten-year plan” for Destiny, at this point in time the future of the online first-person shooter is very hazy and that isn’t always going to be a bad thing.

Think about it this way: when games are announced that they will be delayed/pushed back to release at a later date, I find that I am not angry or disappointed. On the contrary, having a game release at a later date is more a blessing for the player audience as well as for the company, and this is solely due to the fact that given the right amount of time and effort, we hope that the end product will be all the more awe inspiring and worth the wait.

We have seen this with cases like BioShock Infinite, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Red Dead Redemption.Although this is not always the case with every game that has been delayed as we have seen how over-hyped games which have been delayed didn’t turn out as what we had initially been shown and what we expected like Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs.

Do you think players will be able to keep playing Destiny if Bungie keeps up with limited time events leading up to the expansion, or will there be a significant downfall in numbers until a hefty expansion and or the release of a second Destiny comes about.

The Dreadnaught – Source: Bungie

So we all know that Destiny’s third expansion, The Taken King, is coming September 15, 2015 to PlayStation and Xbox. Bungie, in a weekly news update revealed various new story locations for the long awaited expansion, ominous concept art showcasing the menacing castle in the sky, the Dreadnaught.

Andrew Hopps, Senior Artist commenting on the games new playscape in the games weekly update stated:

“It is important to us that you would feel the scale as you moved through the hulls of the Dreadnaught, never sure about what to expect as large spaces condensed to claustrophobic tunnels before revealing entirely new areas of the ship. A sense of wonder about the unknown is what drove a lot of the spatial design. It was an incredibly fun challenge to find the right balance between a mysterious tomb ship and the flagship for the Taken fleet – to capture the idea of this unfathomable threat, a monstrous spaceship captained by the Taken King, yet filled with vast caverns and unknown passages. I can’t wait for players to explore and discover all of its secrets.”

During an interview with VG247, Luke Timmins, Bungie programmer, had commented on various new elements for the third expansion. Timmins had explained that the expansion will occur in two new locations; Mars’ moon, Phobos, and Oryx’s spaceship, the Dreadnaught.

“The first mission you’re going to play is called The Coming War, and it takes place on Phobos, which is Mars’ moon. You can actually see Phobos in the sky-box when you’re playing on Mars, and now you get to go there. That’s where the new campaign kicks off. But the new destination in The Taken King is the Dreadnaught. The Taken King is this ancient Hive lord who’s come to this system on a mission of revenge, to get back at those guardians who defeated his son Crota, and he’s brought with him a Taken army.”

Timmins also went into detail on the subject of the expansions new enemies. The Taken Knight for instance has special abilities which allow him to teleport and conjure up a wall of flames, while the Taken Phalanx, like the traditional Phalanx’s, have the power to use their shields to aggressively push guardians utilizing what Bungie have called a, “radiating force.” Lastly, Timmins commented on the Taken Psions, which surprisingly has a freakish new power which allows him duplicate himself.

Creative Director of The Taken King, Luke Smith noted that, “one of the design goals for TTK was to make the alien races of Destiny feel even more alien.”

Concept Art – Source: Bungie

In-Game

Designer Ben Wommack in the update also explained that the studio additionally made efforts into making changes for in-game patrols.

“We’ve created a suite of new mechanics and woven them into the Patrol mode. Every week, every day even, it will draw you back to fight through to its depths for loot and glory. Expect to find new Bounties, Patrol Missions, and Public Events both large and small – some of which you can even investigate yourself, if you can discover how.”

The images provided above is an illustration of The Taken King’s second patrol area which takes place on Oryx’s Dreadnaught – a menacing empire in the galaxy. Details of this ominous area indicates that the Dreadnaught is home to the Taken; which for anyone unfamiliar with this title, is the name for the “new” enemies for the expansion. Although there are the obvious quotation marks surrounding the word new to subtly direct sarcasm towards Bungie’s lack of creativity when it comes to conjuring up new enemies, but instead recycle old enemies, I can’t help but feel torn between the choice behind re-skinning older mobs.

The word “taken” which finds itself at the beginning of every enemies name, points towards the fact that these enemies have indeed been taken and in a sense brainwashed into joining Oryx’s army, as is evident during an official, “The Taken King ViDoc,” where enemies are shown with an luminous white, “supernatural flame which burns them from the inside” as Art Director, Michael Zak commented.

Concept Art – Source: Bungie

In-Game

The Design lead for Destiny, Lars Bakken, spoke in length about the games new PvP modes. One game mode titled, Mayhem, which is a completely new competitive mode of crucible. He commented, “we wanted to see what happened when we let ability energy and super energy recharge really quickly, which is where the name Mayhem comes from, which is essentially team death-match.”

The second new mode of PvP is what Bakken called, Rift. This second style of play is what the games PvP system was lacking to begin with and completely contrasts the traditional games crucible mode of, Control. Bakken asserted that each team has to attempt to grab what he called a spark, which players would then proceed to take to the enemy teams rift.

“There’s two ways players can do this. You can go in forwards and do the traditional dunk right in, and players can also back-flip dunk which nets you extra points for style. If the enemy team grab it, you then have to defend your point and make sure they don’t bring the spark back into your rift.”

So what do you guys think about these updates, locations and information on The Taken King expansion?

For more news, reviews and updates on Destiny, don’t forget to follow us and hit us up on our official Twitter pages @GeorgiaDanaG and @Hackinformer.

Yesterday Bungie and Sony announced a new Destiny PS4 bundle. The contents of this bundle includes Destiny: The Taken King’s Legendary Edition, which is the version of the game which has all the content that is available to date, with a sleek designed 500GB white PS4 which has a silver map of the galaxy and a gold Guardian emblem painted on the top.

Although I don’t think that the white controller which comes in the bundle will have its face button and d-pad swapped (as you can see in the picture above).

“The package will include a white Destiny-inspired 500GB Limited Edition Ps4 system and a physical copy of Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition, which includes Destiny, Expansions I and II, and The Taken King. You’ll also get an upgrade to the Digital Collector’s Edition, which includes the following content: three exotic Guardian class items with XP bonuses, three classic-specific emotes, three armour shaders, as well as the early access weapons packs.

The limited edition console will ship on September 15, which is also the date for the new expansion. The Collectors Editions costs $79.99 with all the above mentioned content, and it proved to be very controversial as it was only going to be available in the Collectors Edition. However, the additional content will now available on its own at the cost of $20.

PlayStation exclusive content (Ps4 & PS3) will have an exclusive Vex strike titled, “The Echo Chamber,” and exotic scout rifle called the Jade Rabbit, one set of armour for each of Destiny’s three classes and an exclusive Crucible map, Sector 618.

“Challenge your fellow Guardians in the Crucible map set within the ruins of an Earth colony reclaimed from the House of Wolves. Fans of Clash and Control modes will find plenty to love in this mid-sized arena: each side’s narrow chambers give way to an open center arena, connected only by two exposed bridges and a handful of a small platforms for the adventurous.”

Bungie Day

“The launch of Destiny has meant so much more to us than the release of a new game. Our first journey around the sun together led to the origins of an amazing community.”

It’s no secret that Bungie plans on having Destiny around for the next 10 years, so to celebrate its first anniversary, the Bungie Day video is a dedication to the vast and continuously growing community.

Bungie stated that, “no one video can capture an entire year of space magic,” so they pushed out an idea to encourage all fans to share their favourite moments by submitting a video, picture or artwork with regards to Destiny on July 23.

In addition to the festivities, Bungie are also challenging players to complete various tasks in order to become legend and achieve a Laurea Prima emblem.

These “Moments of Triumph” have to be completed before September 9, 2015 which is the games first birthday. To track your progress players are able to go to a special Bungie.net page.

Crucible Gladiator: Win 100 Crucible matches

Chest Hunter: Find all golden chests

Public Servant: Complete 50 Public Events

Apprentice of Light: Achieve maximum character level

Light in the Dark: Prevent the summoning of Crota’s Soul

Light of the Guardian: Defeat the dark heart of the Black Garden

Light of the Reef: Capture Skolas in the Vex Citadel

Bane of Skolas: Defeat Prison of Elders on Hard Difficulty

Bane of Atheon: Defeat Atheon on Hard Difficulty

Bane of Crota: Defeat Crota on Hard Difficulty

You have become legend.

“Congratulations, Guardian. Your quest is complete!”

The Taken King will launch September 15 on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One for $39.99.

So how far along is everyone with their “Moments of Triumph”? Hit us up on our official Twitter pages and tell us! @Hackinformer and @GeorgiaDanaG

It’s that time of the week where you give your hard earned strange coins to the mysterious Xur: Agent of the Nine. Those of you unfamiliar with Xur or perhaps new to the Destiny universe, Xur sells Exotic armour, Exotic weapons and more at the cost of Strange Coins and Motes of Light.

Xur can be located in the Tower near the Vanguard masters/vendors this weekend until 9am GMT Sunday, June 28.

Here’s a few things you need to know about the Red Death, if you were on the fence about buying it or not. The Red Death is an exotic primary weapon, and a Pulse Rifle. With a bayonet attached at the front of the weapon full of blood, the red skull crossbones reflect sight is enough to scare anyone to their core, especially in the earlier days of Destiny’s release.

Killing an enemy with this weapon, whether Guardian or Non-Guardian in PvP or PvE – this gun grants 100% health regeneration.

“In addition to 100% health regeneration, each kill boosts Guardians with a faster reload. this significantly changes the flow of your game to deliver kill streaks and multi-kills that are otherwise broken up by long periods in cover.”

On the PvE side of Destiny, this gun was especially handy in the early days of the Crota’s End raid which launched with the Dark Below expansion back in January.

The reason for this was in the last section of the raid on hard mode, where you go up against Crota, there is no life-restoring Chalice to be found like in normal mode due to the Presence of Crota debuff.

That’s when players had to get creative and use the perks of weapons and gear to help restore the health back to full.

For instance the Red Death restores health 100% after each kill, whereas the Suros Regime Auto Rifle perks highlights that, “the bottom half of each magazine deals bonus damage and has a chance to return health when dealing damage.”

More good news with regards to Pulse Rifles can be seen in the 1.1.1 update for Destiny, where Pulse Rifles saw a 9.7 percent damage boost across the board.

For those of you who don’t know where to find strange coins to earn, they can be rewarded to players at the end of Weekly Heroic Strikes or even during a Weekly Nightfall Strike.

What do you think about the Red Death and all the other goodies in Xur’s inventory this week, worth the buy?

Don’t forget to follow us and hit us up on our official Twitter pages for more news and reviews on the latests hacks, software updates and games here at Hackinformer.

Bungie came under heavy criticism this week with regards to the purchase of Destiny: The Taken King’s Collector’s Edition and how some in-game items would only available in said edition.

As an adamant player of the game since its release back in September, it felt as though those who were in it from the beginning, clocking hundreds upon thousands of hours into Destiny, are being completely overlooked.

The various in-game digital content meant that these class items, shaders and emotes would only be available by purchasing the base game, the first two expansions (The Dark Below and House of Wolves) and The Taken King expansion for $80.

For those who want to purchase The Taken King on its own have to pay $40.

On the weekly update which occurs every Tuesday, Bungie announced that the various digital items available in the Collector’s Edition would in fact be available to purchase separately.

Luke Smith, the creative director of The Taken King in light of the uproar commented,

“Reading my interview with Eurogamer and imagining it came from some random developer of a game I love – that random developer looks like an Asshat. But that Asshat was me – and those words rightfully anger you. I’m sorry. My words made it sound as if Bungie doesn’t care about their most loyal fans. We do care. We are listening. And we will make it right.”

A nice sentiment from Luke Smith, but still $40 for the new expansion and an additional $20 for the in-game digital content is over reaching.

Alongside the controversy over in-game goodies which sparked this week, the expansion is also getting a quest which can be unlocked by a code featured on certain Red Bull cans.

According to Red Bull’s website, the quest will be, “a never-before-seen, multi-stage mission in The Taken King that will test the speed and strategic abilities of Destiny players in new ways.”

Seen in the picture below, the code will also feature a one-time consumable which will grant players a 50% XP boost for thirty minutes upon redeeming the code.

Here’s the kicker. These special edition Red Bull cans are only purchasable at 7-11 stores from July 1. Thanks Bungie.

A silver lining in light of this news, for players who don’t want to buy any Red Bull cans or just simply can’t because they don’t live in a country with 7-11’s, those players will have to wait until January 1, 2016, as it will unlock for everyone.

The Taken King will launch in September which will feature, new strikes, storyline, multiplayer changes and a new raid. The most exciting element of this new addition to the game however is hands down the new sub-classes for Hunters, Warlocks and Titans.

All hunters master the frontier, but none claim territory quite like a Nightstalker. Shadowshot binding may seem more merciful than gun or blad, until the feeding frenzy begins.

Stormcallers directly manipulate Arc energy, focusing body and mind to channel and chain the lightening. Their enemies are given fair warning – flee from battle, or face the storm.

So what do you guys think about the costs of the Collectors Edition, and how Bungie is now separately selling the content in the collectors package? Hit us up on our official Twitter pages @Hackinformer and @GeorgiaDanaG to let us know what you think.

Stay tuned for updates on Xur’s Inventory refresh and Trials of Osiris.